MANY HURRICANES STRUCK THE ATLANTIC AND CARIBBEAN BEFORE 1600-RECONSTRUCTED THRU PALEOTEMPESTOLOGICAL RESEARCH

This
is a list of all known or suspected Atlantic hurricanes before 1600.
Although most storms likely went unrecorded, and many records have
been lost, recollections of hurricane occurrences survive from some
sufficiently populated coastal areas, and rarely, ships at sea that
survived the tempests.

Pre-17th
century17th century18th century1800s

Observation
data for years before 1492 is completely unavailable because most
natives of North America lacked written languages to keep records in
the pre-Columbian era, and most records in written Mesoamerican
languages either do not survive or have not been deciphered and
translated. Scientists now regard even data from the early years of
the Columbian era as suspicious because Renaissance scientists and
sailors made no distinction between tropical cyclones and
extratropical systems, and incomplete because European exploration of
North America and European colonization of the Americas reached only
scattered areas in the 16th century. However, palaeotempestological
research allows reconstruction of pre-historic hurricane activity
trends on timescales of centuries to millennia. A theory has been
postulated that an anti-phase pattern exists between the Gulf of
Mexico coast and the East Coast of the United States.[1] During the
quiescent periods, a more northeasterly position of the Azores High
would result in more hurricanes being steered towards the Atlantic
coast. During the hyperactive period, more hurricanes were steered
towards the Gulf coast as the Azores High—controlled by the North
Atlantic oscillation—was shifted to a more southwesterly position
near the Caribbean.